Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!uwm.edu!rutgers!ucsd!hub.ucsb.edu!appmag!curly.appmag.com!pa
From: pa@curly.appmag.com (Pierre Asselin)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: A Question of Style
Message-ID: <713@curly.appmag.com>
Date: 21 May 91 16:25:42 GMT
References: <12306@uwm.edu>
Reply-To: pa@appmag.com (Pierre Asselin)
Organization: Applied Magnetics, Goleta, CA
Lines: 28

In article <12306@uwm.edu> jgd@uwm.edu writes:
>
>I have recently run into a FORTRAN compiler that exhibits, to my
>mind, an annoying trait.  It complains voiciferously about statement
>numbers that are defined on statements, but are otherwise unreferenced.
>[...]
>* Is this trait good or bad?  Desirable or undesirable?

Good because, should you want to find unreferenced lines and clean up
your code, a compiler can do it much better than you.

>* Is the inability to suppress this specific message good or bad?

ABOMINABLE.  Ruins the whole thing.  Better it weren't there at all.
As you pointed out, the "spurious" labels could be referenced in
explanatory comments.

>* Is this allowed/forbidden/not-specified by the Standard?  (We are
>  speaking X3.9-1978 here.  My perusal of the Standard leads me to
>  believe this excessive nattering is not disallowed, but is also 
>  not required.  However, I'm no standards expert.)

The standard doesn't specify "The mechanism by which programs are
transformed for use on a data processing system".  (Section 1.3.2, p.  1-1)
Seems to me, your compiler could post spurious warnings to
comp.misc.bugs and still comply with X3.9-1978... ;-)

--Pierre Asselin, R&D, Applied Magnetics.  I speak for me.